Distraction
by cellotlix
Summary: Commander Shepard has two men and a choice. Whoever said two is better than one has never loved before. Smut quasi-AU
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This came into being after a typical day of fangirling on tumblr. Please blame the wonderful samann80, Mussimm, Dandy in the Aspic, libbabink, thunz, kaidansbioticapprentice, mandyshepard, saraportela, and everyone else for their encouragement as I wrote this. This is my first attempt at smut, so if that is not your cup of tea, kindly hit the back button! :)**

Commander Shepard is spitting mad. She pulls apart the latches on her armor and lets it thunk to the deck; she doesn't even bother shelving the pieces properly. Her guns lie abandoned on the arms table, to be cleaned and put away by a subordinate later. She doesn't care. But she doesn't let the strangled sounds of anger come through her teeth until the door to her cabin latches shut.

She's so angry her blood feels foreign, screaming through her veins and pounding in her temples; rough and alive. Her hair is a mused and sweaty crown on her forehead, and she swipes it away. She could crush a stone into dust in her fist, without even the help of her biotics. She could rip out the bulkhead of this freighter and not feel a bit of guilt.

Thessia lies in ruins, and it's _her fault._

She can't even think the words, can't even let herself remember the ruins and the corpses and the thick reek of the dead. She can't think about the Reapers and Kai Leng – that _bastard – _and the Illusive Man, always one step ahead of her. She needs a hell of a distraction now, or the weight of her fury will pull her inward and she will collapse like a dying star.

Rage and desire have always been intricately linked in Shepard. There's no better distraction than the feel of a man between her legs, his mouth on her neck, his tongue on her sex. And in a thrilling flash of inspiration, she knows exactly what she wants. What she needs.

She considers her options clinically for a moment. There are two men on this ship that could possibly satisfy that need, growing more insistent the longer it goes unmet. She knows this from experience - Kaidan will be love and care, and all the while simmering with hardly controlled need. But James won't bother to control himself; he's rage and fire, hard hands that leave bruises, blooming like purple-petal flowers under her skin.

And she thinks to herself: why choose?

She waits until the sleep cycle, until only a skeleton detail remains awake. She plots how she will broach this subject, schemes how she will convince them to go along with her need. Neither one of them is particularly understanding or prone to sharing. James is competitive; maybe she could use that. Kaidan would do anything she asked – that would definitely work.

"Major Alenko, Lieutenant Vega," she says into the intercom. She works to keep the trembling desire out of her voice. "I need to see you both immediately."

Need, she said. Maybe they'll hear it in her voice. Maybe they already know.

It's not a big ship, but it feels oddly like hours pass while she waits. She thinks about the two of them and her hands slide down the front of her pants, her head lolling back. The longer she works the more she needs it, and desire becomes painful, tight as a fist, throbbing.

When she hears them on the other side of her door, she opens the lock and they both stride in. Kaidan stands straight and upright, but James watches her with confusion and something like need. It occurs to Shepard that he may already suspect what's going through her mind. This excites her even more.

"Commander," Kaidan says.

She decides not to beat around the bush. "I need you both to fuck me."

They're both stunned, and a part of her likes shocking them into silence. James is the first to recover. "What?" he manages.

"I said 'I need you both to fuck me," she says again, leaning against the doorframe.

They're both aware of her arrangement with both of them. It's casual and non-exclusive. James agrees because his desire outweighs his anger at the situation, and Kaidan agrees because he loves her too much to deny her what she tells him she needs.

"You're at liberty to say no," she reminds them both, though she knows they won't. James wants her, Kaidan wants her; they'll do whatever she wants to have her.

James shrugs with false bravado. "I'm game for it if the Major is," he says. Shepard knew he'd see it as a challenge, and now there is no way Kaidan will refuse, even if he wanted to. Which he doesn't.

"Whatever you want, Shepard," Kaidan says. He means it, every single time he tells her.

She wonders if she should feel guilty for pitting them against each other, for using her knowledge of them to suit her needs. But after a brief thought, she refuses to acknowledge guilt. They're consenting adults, and they're at liberty to decide who and what they want, and how they want it. She's offered terms, they've accepted. She won't feel guilty for that.

Desire rears its head at the sight of them standing side by side. Kaidan is cool, James is heat. She needs Kaidan's care and James' fire; blended in thrilling alchemy. A fusion of a most forbidden kind.

She punches in the lock code to her door and fixes them both with a cool stare, though her skin feels more like a live wire; thrilling and aching for their touch. "Take off your clothes," she commands.

Kaidan is quick to comply, but it's James who touches her first. He wants her naked and he won't tolerate being denied that a moment longer. She hears her shirt rip as the fabric rends under his strong, demanding hands. She feels his erection pressed against her inner thigh and shudders from the thrill of it, the physical manifestation of his desire.

She doesn't find herself beautiful – she'd never been, even before Lazarus. She is skinny and lean rather than soft with curves, and that was before the scars. Her breasts are small and her nose is crooked and overlarge, and yet these two men look at her as if she is the sexiest woman in the world, and she likes it; likes the power and the affirmation, the assurance and the need.

Her hands run over the outline of James' erection, separated only by a thin layer of cloth, and a shudder ripples through him. She peels away his fatigues and pulls them down roughly. But she doesn't give him what he needs, not yet. She takes James in her hands and runs her lips over Kaidan's cock instead, teasing and tormenting them both. Kaidan makes a needing sound in the back of his throat, and she hears James growl, his hands fisting tightly in her hair.

She's already so wet and they're rigid as bone, and it could be over so fast. But she doesn't want it to; she wants to stretch this out as long as it can bear, because she suspects it will never happen again. She knows that not only will they never tolerate this again, but she is probably ruining their individual arrangements as well. She doesn't care; she needs this. The both of them, hot and hard.

James is impatient with her; he's pulling on her hair so roughly that she wonders dimly if he'll rip it out by the roots, but it doesn't hurt like a slug in the arm or a shot in the gut does. It's a beautiful, rich kind of hurt, a throbbing synchronicity with her sex. She slides her tongue up the length of his erection and his head falls back, muttering a low string of Spanish curses under his breath.

James is insistent, but it's Kaidan who enters her first. Normally he is control personified – rigid and exacting - and she loves seeing him like this; desire fraying at that iron grip over what seethes beneath his surface. She leans back on her desk and accepts all of him, gasping as he plunges hilt deep, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

"God," he whispers brokenly as he thrusts. "God . . ." And she would echo him, if James hadn't pushed himself throat-deep in her, if she could work the words around his girth. Stuck on all ends, transfixed. She only hears their breathing, rough and ragged, and weirdly synchronized. She only feels them, and the rise of pleasure cresting in her like a swelling wave.

Kaidan plays her like a harp. His fingers know every fold of soft skin, the tender nerves that thrill under him. She is briefly lucid for long enough to marvel that he knows how to touch her better than she does herself before she is submerged by his ministrations, shuddering around his cock, arcing like a beam under his hands.

There is a scent to them that is intoxicating. There is a juxtaposition in the way they feel – Kaidan smooth, James rough. There is a space between these two extremes and that is where she lives; suspended, taut as a string.

Kaidan is too close, and James is all too happy to step in when he falls back. But James surprises her; she expects him to spin her face down and rail into her, his fingers digging into her hips. Instead, he kneels in front of her and his lips touch her sex and that's all she's aware of before she feels his tongue slide against her, his palm riding flat on her belly. _Oh god_, _he is good at this._ His hair is too short for her to grab, but she runs her hands over it, fine and stiff under her fingers.

She knows where this is going, and god does she want it. This is what she had in mind when she tore off her armor after Thessia, so furious that she seemed to go beyond the limits of her skin. She's doing that now, in a different way. She wants it when Kaidan pulls her up his arms and hikes her legs around her waist, pushing quickly into her with hardly any resistance. She needs it when James enters from behind with a rough groan; she feels his hands cup her arms, his teeth grazing her shoulder.

And they're so full and strong, thrusting in tandem, and she trembles between them like a leaf buffeted by the wind. She throws her head back so that her hair grazes the top of James' shoulder, savoring. He's free to touch her while Kaidan bears her weight, and he takes full advantage; pulling, kneading her breasts, his nails dragging over tender skin. He was supposed to be the angry one, and yet the longer it goes the more he bends under the pleasure of her.

She doesn't remember making it to the bed. They're all so wrapped up in this strange turn of events that she figures the ship could break apart under their feet and they wouldn't notice until long after they couldn't breathe. She feels drunk on the both of them – James' desperation, Kaidan's fraying control and the odd look of need in his eyes. She knows that need, she feels it the same as him.

James comes first. She feels him shuddering inside her and he cries out, muffling himself against her shoulder, his fingers raking trenches up her arm. But she doesn't even feel him pull away and sprawl beside them; she's aware of Kaidan tensing below her, the irresistible banding of his muscles under her thighs, the tendons on his hands rigid under flesh as he holds her.

Watching him lose the fight against control is thrilling and sexy and surprisingly tender. He captures her breast in his mouth, grazing her nipple with his teeth and when she shudders and cries out, he is right there with her, pressing his trembling moan into her chest, where inches away her heart frantically beats.

It takes a moment for thought to return. Kaidan's arm is still around her waist, and James' hands are still curls around her shoulders, as if either can't bear to relinquish her yet. They're all breathing hard, and paradoxically it reminds her of that moment after a mission is complete; the feeling is the same, the numb breathlessness, the struggle to regain control when you would rather sleep.

She doesn't want to regain control, not yet. It's nice between them. She wants to stay here for as long as it will last, for each fragile second before one of them gets up and cleans himself off before shuffling away in anger or shame.

But that moment doesn't come. And she realizes this was exactly what all three of them needed.

"Allers!"

Diana jerked away from her console and whipped around to the doorway. Her heart shuddered to a stop when she saw who it was.

"Major!"

Kaidan narrowed his eyes. "You wanted to interview me, remember?"

Christ. Allers was so engrossed in her writing that she'd completely forgotten. The Major was typically an understanding man, but there would be no doubt he would kick her ass out of the airlock if he even so much as glimpsed what was blinking on her console, plain as day.

"J—just a minute," Allers said. She hit the 'x' at the top right corner of the program and clicked 'no' when it asked her if she wanted to save her work.

It would probably be best if this particular story never saw the light of day.

**AN2: Guys, I've done a horrible thing. Now whenever I see Allers, I'll imagine she has notebooks with 'SHEPARD x ALENKO x VEGA = OT3' scrawled all over them. I think it makes her more sympathetic. asdlfhklsdfh**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Many thanks to Cmd Mercy Shepard, FreakingMuse, The BaneOfOlympus91, DefiantAnjeru , obsydiandreams, Ellwyndara, stephivass, tccarty, zharena, gracie21, RicksRoc, mizuko, Karajgil, jay8008, sam623, Anon1, CommanderHawke667, Seacilin O hIongardail, Cortina2, MandyShepard, Anon2, CyanB, and JennaP for your lovely amazing reviews, and to everyone else who read, faved and followed.**

**So I didn't really intend for this to be a chaptered story, but the idea of Allers writing smutty fanfiction about her crewmates was too irresistible. This particular entry came into being during a long drive home.  
**

**As always, love hearing from all of you, so please leave me a review if you enjoyed! Thanks for reading, everyone.  
**

Diana shot a skeptical look across her quarters, where an anxious Traynor was fidgeting, shifting from foot to foot as if the ground was molten under her feet. "They said what, now?" she asked her warily.

"They didn't say anything," Traynor equivocated. "I just had a suspicion."

"Suspicion is a cheap word for straight up curiosity. Come clean or go away," Diana retorted, tossing the datapad she'd been perusing on her desk.

Traynor pulled herself straight. "Fine," she returned with a little bite. "I was checking data caches on the assorted terminals on the Normandy, and I came across something quite interesting on yours."

Diana felt the blood drain from her face. "What the hell were you doing checking my terminal?"

She couldn't be sure, but Diana thought she saw Traynor's lips quirk slightly. "I was curious."

"Of course you were," Diana ground out. "And I'm sure you told them all as soon as you found it, right?"

"If I had, I wouldn't be coming to you, would I?"

"So what do you want? Credits? I don't have any."

Traynor's face fell. "N-no, I don't want credits," she said. "This is coming across all wrong, isn't it?"

"You'd fix that little problem if you just told me what it is that you want."

"Well, first I thought I would give your story back to you," Traynor said, passing an OSD into Diana's hand. "It's quite good."

Diana gaped. "Are we talking about the same story?"

Traynor shifted again, and Diana was definitely not imagining the spots of bright color on her cheeks. "The one with the Commander? And the Major? And . . . oh, for the love of god, don't make me say it out loud."

Huh. Who would have thought the prim little Specialist was capable of appreciating a good smutty yarn. "You liked it, huh?"

"Well, yes," Traynor admitted. "Honestly, I'm not as much of a prude as you think."

"That remains to be seen."

Traynor cleared her throat. "Anyway, I also wanted to show you . . . well, I wrote something myself. A companion piece, if you will."

Not only did Traynor like some good smut, she could reciprocate? "You're kidding!?"

With a prim shake of her head, Traynor passed a nondescript datapad into Diana's hands, pride and apprehension plain on her features. "See for yourself."

Diana scanned the document cursorily at first, and when she found what she was looking for, a small grin turned her lips. "There may be hope for you yet."

* * *

James Vega lived for the pursuit of a woman.

The chase excited him. The more difficult the woman, the deeper the satisfaction. He loved the subtle reversal from outright rejection to surrender, the way what was once rigid with dislike would succumb to desire and mold herself to him. He loved how each word plied against control, stacked like bricks, and the change in her eyes when she could no longer bear to keep him away.

James Vega lived to be wanted.

Not that he'd force himself on a woman; he wasn't a monster wearing a man's clothing. He did nothing before hearing that most beautiful word in any language, the one that managed to convey equal parts surrender and demand, want and need: yes.

So it wasn't exactly a surprise that he'd found himself chasing Commander Shepard, not once you knew what she was. Difficult, stubborn, exacting; she ran hot and cold faster than a normal man could keep up. And he was no normal man.

But it was a surprise to realize that competition honed these natural impulses of his, made the chase even more exciting, more harrowing, more rewarding once the prize was won. It made him strive. It made him consider multiple paths to the victory, and encouraged him to constantly reevaluate the battlefield.

The Major was a completely different man than he was, and even more different lover. And the way James saw it, Shepard could take her pick now as she wanted, but one of these days she was going to choose between them. And he'd be damned if she didn't choose him.

He was waiting for the right moment to leave his haunt in the shuttle bay, pacing by the weapons bench. He'd disassembled and reassembled his rifle a half-dozen times, so that his hands carried out the task without any input otherwise, an instinctual routine. He thought instead of the things he was say to her, the way that she would yield under his touch, hard muscle to soft skin.

"You're going to wear a groove in the floor," Esteban said amicably.

"Cram it," James returned with heat. Most days he tolerated – even enjoyed – Esteban's prodding, but today was not most days. Today he felt like he was minutes away from leaping out of his skin and leaving it behind on the deck in a messy pile.

"Something bothering you?"

"Yeah; you."

Esteban held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Fine, fine. Pout your heart out."

Pouting was hardly the right word. Fuming was better. Seething, even. Either way, James had had enough. He slammed down his rifle on the bench and made for the elevator, ignoring Esteban's dismayed squawking. "Aw, Vega, come on," he said as the elevator doors shut between them.

He'd apologize to Esteban later. When he'd worked this churning mass of desire out of his gut.

James punched in Shepard's floor and leaned back as the lift bore him slowly upward, too slowly for his taste. Desire was part of it. But he had a nagging suspicion that as with all things, Shepard preferred the Major, and it was starting to drive him somewhat insane.

Maybe he'd understand if it was anyone but the Major. (Probably not, but for the sake of comparison, it would serve). Probably because if it was anyone else, he'd at least know that he was better, and Shepard's choice otherwise was due more to her perversity than his merit or lack thereof. He couldn't say the same when stacking himself up next to the Kaidan Alenko.

Fucking boy scout, is what he was. A Major, for one thing, and a damn good one; even James had to admit that. A skilled marksman and an even better biotic. Honorable, dutiful, and without a closet of failures blotting out his file. Major Alenko had no Fehl Prime on his record.

Maybe he could handle Alenko's shining career if it wasn't so obvious that Shepard had a real soft spot for him, one that she was obsessively protective over. He'd seen them on the field. Orienting themselves around each other like fucking satellites, like they shared a damn brain. Alenko loved her so much that he gave her the freedom to do what she pleased with whom she pleased. James could not say the same.

Or didn't want to say the same. Whichever.

When the elevator opened to her floor, he heard the shower through the walls, and immediately an unbidden image of her with her hands skimming over her body, the hot water streaming down her supple skin barreled into his mind. It took every ounce of control he had not to force open the two doors separating them, though after a time the desire became painful in the most literal sense, and he had to brace himself against the wall to achieve some measure of restraint.

He waited until he heard the water stop before banging on the door. He counted the seconds as they passed – one, two, three, four – and then the door opened with a whoosh, revealing a dripping wet Shepard in a towel, her dark red hair stuck to her brow, her slim neck. God, she was beautiful.

"What the hell?" she demanded of him, and he realized after a moment that she was angry. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you."

"I don't remember giving you permission to come up here," she snapped, pulling the towel tighter around her body, making her breasts swell higher. Only a thin piece of terry cloth separated them from his gaze.

"I need permission just to talk to you now?" he snapped. He was angry and aroused, and the space between those extremes was maddening. He had something important he needed to say to her, but the longer she stood there dripping wet in her towel, the harder it was to find the words he needed.

"Yes," she hissed.

Anger took over. "Like a dog, right? Snap your fingers and I'll come."

"Right," she challenged.

"I want you to think about the day when I don't come," he told her, drawing closer, so close that he could have kissed her quiet if he wanted.

"Is that a threat somewhere in there?" she asked. He watched her chest heave, those perfect breasts straining against her towel. She was mad, but she wanted it. He knew her well enough to know that much without her even having to say a word.

He leaned closer, savoring the scent of soap on her skin and hating the denial he was sure she was working her way around to. "If there is?"

"You must have decided you're done with me if you'd dare threaten me and think I wouldn't follow through," Shepard said, her eyes fierce.

"So do it," he said, gesturing. "Send me off. I've disobeyed you. I've 'dared' question your little cushy setup."

"Is that what this is?"

"You're going to have to choose one of these days, Shepard," he told her. "You aren't always going to get it exactly like you want – two where one would be more than enough for most. You better make that choice before it's made for you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"I'm just telling you, I may not stick around like a good dog, waiting for you to choose him over me. Get used to the idea."

It took nearly every bit of willpower to turn away from her then – delicious, wet, begging to be ravaged – and for a wild second he feared that she wouldn't call him back, that she'd let him make his principled stand all the way back down to the shuttle bay, where he'd be resigned to an evening in the bathroom, where not even the coldest of showers could douse his desire.

But she didn't disappoint. Her hard fingers bit into the flesh of his arm, nails nearly breaking skin, and he rounded on her before she could take another breath. "Careful," he warned in a low, dangerous voice.

"You going to teach me a lesson?" she said derisively, and he knew immediately that this was part of her game; get him so angry that he'd pounce on her, give her exactly what she wanted without saying a word otherwise.

He dispensed with the games. "Not unless you ask for it."

"What?"

He leaned so close that he could feel her hot breath on his cheek, see a reflection of his face in her wide eyes. "From this point on, if you want anything from me, you're going to have to beg. You're going to have to lay it out exactly like that for me, just like I've been doing for you all this time. No more playing coy, in control; if you want me to fuck you, you say so. Otherwise, I'm done."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked him, and it gratified him to see that he'd startled her out of her cocky anger, her blistering disregard. She was looking up at him as if this was the first time she'd ever really seen him.

"Because you've asked a lot of me, Lola. And I'm human. I have limits." He tried to swallow the confession, to pretty it up in swagger and arrogance, but to no avail. "I've given you more than many would. I've shared you when . . . when I want to keep you."

The silence between them stretched long, too long to bear, and he detached himself from her vice-like grip. He wasn't a dumbass. That silence was the answer he'd asked her for, but not the one he'd wanted. He would have known, if he'd had a brain in his skull; whatever he could do, Alenko could do better. The posturing and self-regard came crumbling down, and he was left with what was always underneath; self-loathing.

But this time when she reached for him, it wasn't a demand. "Don't go," she whispered. "Please."

Part of him wanted to go anyway. He'd planned on the ultimatum but not the confession, and he couldn't bear to see her look at him with disgust, or even worse, pity. He wouldn't be able to handle the gentle let down any better than the derisive one. So it stunned him to see what roiled in him echoed plainly on her beautiful features, her fathomless eyes. "Why?" he asked her, heart in throat.

"Because I want you," she said, pulling him closer. "I need you. Don't go."

_But you need Alenko too, _he accused her silently. He struggled to find the words to express this, but she pressed her lips gently to his – a soft, hesitant question – and he lost the ability to speak or think or do anything other than kiss her in return.

He pulled her into his arms and felt her succumb, molding herself to him, hard to soft. She yielded under his demanding mouth, allowed herself to be swept away by his rage and desire; she met it with equal force. And this was the surrender that he'd always loved to feel in a woman, but now it was different, tinged with something like sorrow. He thought maybe it had to do with the man between them, the need Shepard still felt for Kaidan. He feared maybe it was something else, something even more dangerous.

With a low growl, he wrenched away her towel and flung it away, so that she stood before him bare and vulnerable, each curve his to feast on, his to relish. He pressed his hands to her tight stomach and let them trace over the flaring of her hips. He relished the soft sound she made in the back of her throat, the needing moan as her fingers dragged over his scalp, raising the hair on his neck. He captured her breast in his mouth and flicked the nipple with his tongue, and she cried out, arcing under his hands.

"James," she moaned.

He didn't answer. Instead, he swept her into his arms and carried her through her cabin, tossing her down on her bed, the covers still tousled from sleep. He crouched over her, trailing a line of kisses from her neck all the way down her body, but before he gave her what he wanted, he reversed around her hips, sliding his hand up her stomach, the soft skin there.

"Oh, please," she moaned again, desperate now. "James . . ."

He meant to torture her with want longer, so that she would know what it was like to burn three decks away, his hands moving desperately over his erection, trying to be quiet so he wouldn't be caught. He wanted her to know what that hollow want felt like, curling through his limbs, and how insufficient his own ministrations were. How only the feel of her shuddering around his cock was any relief.

But the sight of her writhing under his hands filled him with something tender, something he didn't understand. He bent low and burned a hot trail up her thigh, that impossibly tender flesh, only broken by the old Lazarus scars. And when he finally circled his tongue around her clit, her answering cry shot straight to his groin. It was satisfying that he could make her sing like this. When she came, it was just as good as his own.

She leaned forward before he was aware of anything but the flex of the muscles on her stomach and yanked his shirt up over his head, throwing it across the room. Nimble fingers pulled at the buckle of his pants, and he would have grinned at her desperation if he wasn't painfully hard, equally desperate to plunge himself hilt deep.

"You want it?" he asked her as he knelt between her legs, and he felt her breath hot on his ear. "You need it?"

"Don't be stupid," she growled at him, eyes flashing.

"Say it."

"I shouldn't need to," she panted.

"I want to hear you say it." He pressed the tip of his cock against her opening, swirling it over her still tender clit. "I can do this all day."

"God," she moaned brokenly. "I want you. I – I need you. Please, James."

That was all he needed to hear, perhaps for the rest of his life. But he'd been lying, when he said he could do this all day. He wouldn't have been able to wait, even if she hadn't said a word. He'd have taken her anyway.

She cried out when he entered her, her hands curling into claws against his back, her nails rending tough flesh. He filled her and she filled him, a mutual agreement. When he rocked forward, her desperate hands dug into his thighs, demanding almost more than he could give. When he kissed her hard enough to bleed, she captured his lower lip between her teeth. When she shuddered around him again, he brought her up and over and up again, cresting like a storm-tossed wave.

He wanted to draw it out. He wanted it to be hard for her, a painful lesson, but the anger in him died when he caught sight of her under him, hair splayed on the pillow like a mused halo, her pale skin high with color, her perfectly red lips. And he thought of everything that made him want her so badly that he felt like he was struggling to control something untamed; her passion, her dedication, that stubborn crease between her brows. And above all, that she knew to be gentle when he needed it, that she wasn't too proud to give him honesty after his own stumbling confession.

When he came, he pressed his face in the hollow of her neck and let it wash over him. He half expected her to whisper the Major's name in this vulnerable space where barriers were broken and thoughts uncontained. But instead, she ran her hands up his back and whispered his name again, cradling it like it was precious to her.

And he thought that it was strange and tragic that he should grow to love such a person, a woman who he had no real claim over, a woman who he could only share rather than keep.

* * *

Diana stared at Traynor, hugging the datapad to her chest. For once, words failed her.

"Yes?" Traynor probed nervously.

"You think he loves her?" Diana said. "That makes it even tragic than how I wrote it. If they both love her."

"Maybe he does," Traynor said, shrugging. "If he did, he probably wouldn't know it, though."

"Yeah, you're right," Diana agreed. "God. That was really good!"

"Eh." Traynor shrugged again, this time an embarrassed flush creeping over her cheeks. "It's all right."

"It's good and you know it," Diana argued. "Please tell me you're secretly some kind of professional erotic writer, so I can feel better about my garbage."

"Yours isn't garbage!" Traynor insisted. "It inspired me! I wouldn't have written it otherwise."

Diana waved off the praise, though secretly she was a bit pleased. "Well, you know we can't leave things like you left them," she said seriously.

It took Traynor about a half-second to catch on, and a devious little glint shone in her eyes. "You know, I think you're right."

Diana grinned. "So glad you agree."

**AN2: Traynor x Allers = meta fangirl OTP**


End file.
